1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an outer door grip, in particular for vehicles, with a manually actuatable handle, wherein the handle upon activation can interact with a lock disposed in a door and with a pivotal blocking member, which is disposed normally in an ineffective release position and therewith allows to actuate the handle, which however based on the inertia of its mass passes into an effective blocking position in case of a crash and therewith blocks the handle, wherein two blocking positions are available to the blocking member, and wherein the blocking member passes into a first blocking position in case of a crash from a first direction and wherein the blocking member passes into a second blocking position in case of a crash from a second direction disposed opposite to the first direction.
2. Brief Description of the Background of the Invention Including Prior Art
Such outer door grips are used in a variety of ways. In case of a crash, in particular with a heavy side impact, it is to be avoided that the handles of the vehicle doors swivel toward the outside through the released forces and therewith open the vehicle doors. Thereby the danger would exist, that the vehicle passengers or objects present in the vehicle would be thrown out of the vehicle. Therefore pivotal blocking members are proposed in the state-of-the-art, which blocking members would be deflected based on the inertia of their mass prior to an occurrence of a deflection of the handle, and which blocking members then would block an effective actuation of the handle and would avoid an undesirable opening of the vehicle doors in this manner.
For example, the European patent document EP 1050640 A2 describes such a mass blockage. An outer door grip for vehicles is described here, wherein the outer door grip includes a pendulum like blocking member. In case of a side impact, this blocking member is deflected and thereby prevents an effective actuation of the handle. It is however a disadvantage in this arrangement that different devices have to be furnished for the different doors in the vehicle, for example driver door and co-driver door, since the blocking of the motion of the outer door grip is performed in only a single direction. In addition, the blocking member can prevent the unintentional opening of the door only in case of accidents with essentially the same crash direction. If the crash occurs from a direction, which is opposite to the optimum direction for which the device was laid out, then an unintentional opening of the door, for example caused by oscillations of the handle generated by the crash, cannot be prevented.
A similar problem also results with the outer door grip described in the German printed patent document DE 19929022 A1. Here again a pivotable blocking member is furnished, which blocking member is deflected in case of a crash and prevents then an unintentional actuation of the handle. Here again a separate device has to be furnished for each vehicle side. The blocking member does not prevent the unintentional actuation of the handle through a crash from a direction opposite to the optimum crash angle, caused for example by vibrations generated in the crash.